Will you be buying the new expac?

I loved the housing, I hated the combat. Moving always felt .. clunky or something. The combat was also pretty boring and looked ridiculous.
I spent most of my time there in battlegrounds.

I doubt I'll venture anywhere else again for a while, or maybe I'll drop back into Ark for a sloth.

 

I won't be buying it. They have to prove it's not a constant, buggy grind and remove the requirements to spend hundreds of hours to catch up before they get another cent off me.

Might be hard for me to find out when everyone's quitting though!

 

They've said the ascension grind for alts will remain, no plans other than the 1 time level 5 snap.

 

I am really curious how many sales they'll get of the xpac. I would estimate at least 50% of the regular players and posters on forums (which imo are generally the more passionate people about the game) have quit over this xpac. I'd love it if there's enough to actually make the company react.

But I thought the same about EQ1 in 2005 when I quit that, and they've still managed to have enough to continue.

 

Bang for the buck, yo. If its in the $35 or whatever price range, then sure... much more than that, I'd have to take it into consideration...

 

Seems like there are still a number of people who feel dbg is magically going to turn things around and point the game back to what it was with the new expac.

I really don't what those people feel is fun, but I've seen enough to know I want no part if what they are now selling.

 

What has killed my enthusiasm and tolerance of and for EQ2 even more than the total lameness of the KA expansion, is the horrible attitude of the developers and the dbg staff in general towards the player base (i.e. their loyal paying customers). We have been very loyal over the last 13 years and patient and forgiving, but none of that seems to matter. It's the worst I have ever experienced and unmatched to be honest as compared to any other game I have ever played.

 

The difference between previous years and now that the games have a fraction of the player base they did then, and with every lackluster update, small incomplete and bug riddled expansion, that fraction gets smaller, while other games fill in the niches EQ2 once did, and do it better.

As much excess as possible has been carved off the Norrath franchise, and the development team is considerably smaller as well to reduce cost. It wouldn't surprise me if the game(s) are existing quarter to quarter.

I suppose there is still a tiny bit in the back of my head that hopes things will turn around, but then the pragmatism kicks in.

 

Well.. already in this expansion was clear eq2 need more money, aggressive pay to win: ascension spell.. epic 2.0 spell.. 10 million plats for end tier spell (at least 2-3 player have buy hundreds krono for this spell).. The familiar cage with a guaranty fabled/mytical.... And for keep the player busy, brainless grind.

Now.. several player i know (including my self) will prob not buy the next expa, included some grp boxer.. Since the poor job for the last expa, i expect not many preorder (the last beta was a disaster for the adventure part...), but some player will buy the expa in any case (like raiders)..

For me, they will sell much less preorder, and of course less expa order. Probably at the begin, the server will have a decent population, but after few months (in the best scenario) the population will be very low.

With the preorder low, i just hope daybreak will avoid to increase the price, or remove the first option (30/40$€).

 

Honestly, I probably will. I mean after playing so many years I might as well. I felt like KA was decent as far as zones and quests. Do feel like the dungeons and loot were a bit... Well, not sure why I'm running them sort of feeling. Will see how it plays out, but this year, I felt like once I got epic 2.0 done on two characters it didn't feel like there was much point in playing. And I have only run a couple experts. =/

 

I'll buy it, and I'll pre-order and try to help in beta; like many others, I've spent years in this game and I still get enjoyment out of it. I really enjoyed KA at the beginning, before the Ascension and epic2 grinds.

I agree with Mizgamer62, though...it's been hard to see the player-dev interaction degrade. Our devs are good people, but we really need a dedicated (both meanings: "allocated" and "focused") community advocate. Tensions are running high. Too much important information is scattered over too many mediums, and if it weren't for devoted fellow players, a lot would be missed (and still is, even with their diligent efforts). That leads to more confusion and more tension, which leads to snarky comments and bans and frustration from players and devs alike.

But back to the topic at hand: Yes, I'll buy the next expansion. I'll likely ride this ship all (or most) of the way down, as long as I'm still finding amusement and distraction in the game and the community. But that is highly subjective and personal, so I don't judge others for staying or leaving.

 

I agree, that is one of the biggest problems. I feel like they don't value the community and they also don't have a pulse on it either. Ever since the firings when they transitioned there has been no value seen by them or effort put in to them.

The panda quest is a prime example - Will it be permanent? Kander "We thought we'd just make it permanent and the players would figure it out"

Plsyers "Is the panda quest staying?" - Crickets

Have to give props for Roxxlly for actually posting an update to the forum, but this went on for a bit.

They don't quite understand we do value our time as well, we don't really want to rush to it unless necessary

 

Well really, the culture at eq2 has never cared much about what the community wanted.

At times, they've thrown up some window dressing yo make it appear like they were intetested, but in the end, they typically ignore feedback and suggestions and do what they anyway.

Always been this way.

 

I suspect I will buy it once, after Beta and perhaps a month after I've had time to watch the fallout. I will however not be buying multiple expacs like in the past however many years.

To me, they are playing on the 'Planes' aspect to try lure people in as they have seen TLE bring in large amounts of people at once. Nothing screams Nostalgia like PoP to old school EQ players. (Same tactic as Kunark I guess). Whether they can back it up with good content I am unsure.

While I believe the Dev team do have good intentions, they clearly lack proper leadership and somebody to actually question decisions sensibly. How much design decisions are put on them by upper management we may never know, but to me they are milking EQ2 for all its worth to fund their new unnamed titles. EQ2 has what, less than 20 staff now? Perhaps 10 dedicated solely to EQ2 with no real sign that they plan to increase those numbers (No replacement for Domino for example).

 

One of the cash cows for the game has been the crafting and deco crowd.

I suspect they are going to be disappointed. Will be interesting to see what happens.

And I agree, DBG is just milking as much money from players as the can until the cost to run it is $1 more than the revenue they take in.

 

Bought it, enjoying the Beta. I think they did something to the graphics, it looks awesome and doesn't kill my frame rate.

 

Attitude is also still a problem. The developers in particular should not be interacting with players in the beta forums because they don't answer questions well and can't smooth things over. I've watched them go back and forth for two days now over the spell upgrade non-sense and they still haven't gotten a straight answer. It's not hard: either previous tiers are required to upgrade (as was said earlier this year) or they're not.

Vague answer, the one they gave: "Spell upgrades will work the same way they always have, with drops, components and recipes."

Not-vague answer, the one they should give: "Previous tiers will not be required." -or- "Previous tiers will be required."

Even not answering at all would work better for them, as it doesn't enrage people who aren't getting their direct question answered. I suspect they do this intentionally because they're still trying to decide exactly how much they can get away with based on the pitchfork-factor in the beta forums. Whether "they" is the developers trying to stretch content or the management trying to suck more dollars out of wallets is up for debate, of course.

The Rising Tide change was funny as well. I haven't played the game heavily for years, but I've seen the items and it immediately occurs to me they would be used as a pre-combat buff to mitigate the negative effect. That is not a new concept in EverQuest II, except apparently to the developers who have been designing the items for years. I assure you, the warmth you feel on your leg is the rain, nothing more!

 

"Pre-clickies" are extra dumb because players stack the **** out of them and their other buffs before combat and burn off half the mob's HP before it has a chance to do anything, which leads to stuff like panic scripts being introduced rather than fixing the root problem (insane stat buffs).

 

I consider myself part of the crafting and deco crowd (although not exclusively - I also love to raid and group when possible) and you are exactly right. I'm already disappointed. The carpenter recipes are not in yet. There's supposed to be a tradeskill timeline, but not until AFTER the release date. The tradeskill beta buffer is MIA. I know POP is in beta, but since I've already had to pay for it I really don't think I'm getting my money's worth.

I've gave DBG my $31.50 for the standard edition, and I'm sure I'll spend enough hours in game to justify that cost, but there's NO WAY I'd fork over $90 or $140 for what I've seen so far.

 

I read on the Beta forums that there are no furniture recipes in the post 100 carpenter books (not sure what else would be in them) but that does not give me warm fuzzy feelings when compiled with the worrisome number of issues already being reported... with about a month until go time, unless they delay it.

Oh yeah. And the tradeskill quest line (which is the only one I've bothered with the last couple of expansions) that won't be in until... whenever.